More than 100 people turned out to the Waterloo Memorial Recreation Centre Monday afternoon to hear the four main party candidates in Kitchener-Waterloo debate a range of issues, both provincial and local in scope.

The economy took centre stage and was the focus for about half of the two-hour forum, hosted by the Greater Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber of Commerce, but other issues such as education, health care and municipal services were also discussed.

The candidates dipped into their official party platforms early to highlight how they would help Ontario trim its predicted $12.5 billion deficit for 2014 and pay down the estimated $269 billion in total debt.

Incumbent NDP MPP Catherine Fife said there is waste to be found on almost every file at Queen’s Park and her party would address that wasteful spending and fight for the establishment of a Financial Accountability Officer to oversee how money is spent in the province.

“We are going to find $600 million in savings through an accountability measure,” Fife said. She criticized the Liberals for taking more than nine months to start the hiring process for the accountability officer that was promised in the last election.

“We wanted to hire an accountability officer, not give birth to one,” she said.

Liberal candidate Jamie Burton criticized the NDP and Fife herself — who sat on the accountability officer selection committee — for rejecting the candidate the Liberals eventually selected. Fife argued the candidate was not qualified for the position.

Burton also said her party would continue to invest in skills training, job development and infrastructure.

“It is a budget with a well-laid plan that speaks to everything we need to continue moving forward,” she said. “We will be under budget by 2017-2018, that is the plan.”

Stacey Danckert of the Green Party said her party would save $1.6 billion by merging the private and the Catholic school boards in the province, and add up to $1 billion in new revenue by charging more for resource extraction and processing.

PC candidate Tracey Weiler said her party would reduce the number of cabinet positions, tie minister salaries to performance goals and review the 630 agencies, boards and commissions in the province. Weiler also said many of the 100,000 layoffs the PCs have announced over four years would be achieved through attrition.

On the healthcare file, three of the four candidates said they would keep the Local Health Integration Network — though Danckert and Fife said there must be a comprehensive review of the program. Weiler was the only candidate to say her party would scrap it. She said the money would be better spent on front-line workers.

The Waterloo-Wellington LHIN receives just over $1 billion annually.

The LHIN program was set up by the Liberal government in 2006 and they oversee funding for Ontario’s public hospitals, long-term care homes and community care access centres.

The issue of the much-maligned Highway 7 expansion between Kitchener and Guelph was also discussed. Fife compared the situation to the film Groundhog Day and said the same questions were raised during the 2012 byelection.

She said the road has serious safety concerns and that two-way, all-day GO train service between Toronto and this region was also a top priority for the NDP, as well as a bus service along the highway.

Burton repeated her government’s promise that construction on the project would begin in 2015, a promise Weiler also made if her party is elected.

Weiler and Danckert both highlighted the importance of two-day, all-day GO service to ease congestion on the highway and help reduce the approximately $6 billion in lost productivity that results from congestion.

Danckert called the rebuilding of Highway 7 a “short-term solution to a long-term problem” and that transit investment made more sense in the long term than spending $400 million reconstructing.

The forum was the second of three to be hosted by the chamber. The final forum occurs tonight in the riding of Kitchener-Conestoga at 4 p.m. in Elmira at the Woolwich Memorial Centre.